MISSIONS: Basics – Understanding Mission Types - #00005

'We're on a mission from god' – Blues brothers

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There are a lot of different mission types to choose from. What kind of mission you decide to do should be influenced by the type of ship you use and its performance, the mission's difficulty and the time needed to do it.

Especially as a beginner, you will most likely concentrate on missions with a good payout in terms of time invested. Later on, you might be interested in +++++ INF missions for political purposes or missions with special materials as a bonus.

Elite Dangerous' mission boards always look a bit dull. Don't be mistaken, that's only by their monochromatic looks.

NON COMBAT MISSIONS

Data delivery
These missions come in several flavors, depending on the current economic state of the giving faction. They are easy and time efficient and the boom variant often pays well for smaller vessels without the option of transporting large amounts of cargo.

Cargo delivery
Depending on the economic state of the giving faction, you are offered to deliver either small amounts of cargo (1-10 tons, usually), medium amounts of cargo (ca. 10-180 tons) or bulk amounts of cargo (up to 10.000 tons). Goods for transport to another system are usually provided by the mission and must be loaded onto your ship manually in the mission board. If you lose your ship on these missions, you lose the cargo you carry. If you manage to transport more than 50% on bulk missions, you can receive a partial payout. If you lose more on bulk missions or if you lose your ship on the smaller missions, you fail. No payout. Decreased reputation with the mission giver.

Cargo delivery missions are mostly chilled projects with a decent income. Just make sure you can deliver the goods in time, it can be a real problem delivering 6000+ tons using a 20 ton capacity ship.

Mining missions
Avoid these missions with only a few exceptions for your own good. They seem lucrative, but they're usually a real pain with lots of time to invest into, especially with smaller ships and without vast knowledge and experience in how-and-where-to-mine. You are not compensated enough for your efforts, promised.

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